


you know the heart of a stranger

by Pretentious_Procrastinator



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: (kind of), First Time, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Love Confessions, M/M, Rimming, Star Wars is about human connection in the desert Actually, The Inherent Eroticism of being trapped inside with the man you love during a sandstorm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:20:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28671411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pretentious_Procrastinator/pseuds/Pretentious_Procrastinator
Summary: Mando’s as good as promised he’s going to stick around, and Cobb would love to believe him. He really would. But he knows better. Mando’s going to leave. Maybe not soon, maybe not for a few years even, but eventually. Everyone leaves on Tatooine, whether they want to or not. Mando’s already practised at it. He’d rather not give him more reason to. Cobb’s big enough to acknowledge that he’s a cocky son of a gundark most of the time, but he isn’t delusional enough to think whatever is growing between them is sprouting fast enough to keep Mando tethered to Mos Pelgo. Not when Grogu’s gonna have a gravity well of his own soon enough, one leading far away from Tatooine.But Mando is here for now. Cobb can eke out some happiness from whatever time they have. It might be hard, but Cobb is a miner, he's used to hard work and hard graft with little reward, progress etched painstakingly into the earth until suddenly a treasure glints beneath your hands.(He can't help but think about the glint of the sun off of Mando's armour.)Mando left, and then he came back. Cobb's still dealing with it.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Comments: 19
Kudos: 194





	you know the heart of a stranger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elephantastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephantastic/gifts).



> Happy Combined-Celebration-Because-This-Is-Very-Late Roxane! Thank you so much for the cheerleading Zoe and Joe, could not have done this without you.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://thewintermusketeer.tumblr.com/)

Mando’s been back for 43 days: more than twice as many days as he’d stayed the first time, but still less than a quarter of the time he’d been gone. Cobb’s still adjusting, still expecting his home to be empty of everything but sand every time he returns to it; instead, he finds Mando, and his cute little kid. That’s something he’d given up hoping for. The kid even has a name now, even if does sounds like something you’d call a Hutt. 

It’s just lucky Grogu isn’t with him and Mando today, not with the way the sandstorm hit so suddenly. They’d left him with Old Bemu, who actually isn’t that old by any reckoning other than that of Tatooine. Xe is one of the few locals who'd lived long enough to slip xir bonds and become a Storyteller, before even the rise of the Empire: xe’d removed Cobb’s slave chip, all those years ago, and he trusts xir with his life. 

That had been enough for Mando. Cobb is trying not to think too much about how quickly and implicitly Mando had trusted him with his child.

( _Not my child for much longer_ , Mando had said gruffly, no longer denying the possessive at least. Cobb is just selfishly grateful that Skywalker will be coming back to Tatooine for him, that Mando won’t have to leave again any time soon. At least not until he decided regular comm calls aren’t enough and invents an excuse to go and visit whatever planet the Temple is on.)

Despite Mando’s subtle (to a blind bantha, maybe) fretting when it had actually been time to leave Grogu earlier, it turns out to have been a good thing they did leave the kid. Even without the sandstorm, some of the dire straits Mando has taken Grogu into seem to have dawned on him, and he’s got awful fussy about what’s safe. A rendezvous with the sister tribe of the Tuskens who’d helped them with the krayt dragon didn’t quite make the cut, even if its purpose was peace. Cobb still feels twitchy around the Tuskens, and with good reason; there’s generations of bad blood soaked into the sand on both sides. Much more on one side if Cobb is being honest, which he’s trying to be now – but it’s hard to unlearn a skill you’ve practised for long enough, and he’d gotten very good at lying to himself over the years. It was self-defence, in a way. If you want to be free on Tatooine you have to claw and dig and fight for it, and if you have to convince yourself of the righteousness of aspects of that fight then that is just part and parcel of it too.

With the veil of that justification thinned, Cobb feels like an old massif learning new tricks. It’s improbable but not impossible, especially not when it benefits his town. With Mando along to help translate Cobb’s fumbling attempts to learn Tusken sign, he was meant to be attending a meeting between some of the local tribe and their sister people; to consolidate their alliance with Mos Pelgo, and maybe get another trade agreement. But he’s got no doubt the Tuskens were all holed up as soon as they saw the storm incoming. Hell, they’d have known far before him and Mando. Investing in reliable comms between their two parties is quickly becoming one of his priorities.

There’s nothing to be done about it until the storm is over. Luckily, they’d been close enough to one of the old waystations maintained by Mos Pelgo and the other sporadic settlements scattered across the Wastes. It’s a squat, solid building, nestled against and carved out of the rock. Built to last. The inhabitants that need it, and indeed the number of them, change across the years, but Tatooine’s mercilessness doesn’t. Cobb checked it himself a few months back, so once they’re down the steps the small room is familiar enough to him. The generator clicks on and illuminates the narrow bench that passes for a bed, the table that takes up most of the space, and the cupboard doors that hide Tatooine’s smallest ‘fresher. They’ve got water enough with them that Cobb’s priority is stripping off his sand encrusted clothes, rather than checking the vaporator just yet. 

Mando makes a choked noise, still halfway up the stairs. 

“Sorry, Mando. Believe me, you do not want to be bringing this amount of sand inside. Clothes, and armour I guess, stay here.”

He doesn’t need to look behind him to see the incredulous angle of Mando’s head. He snorts, because for a silence that for anyone else could be seen as reserving judgement, there’s an awful lot of opinion packed into it. 

“Don’t worry. Wipe your helmet down first” - and he tosses one of the cloths kept by the doorway just for that purpose over his shoulder – “and I reckon it’ll be fine. As for the rest of it, I’ll be as good as gold in the corner, with my back turned. Eyes shut too, if it makes you feel better.”

Cobb’s down to his underwear by now, and barefooted as well. No point in tracking in sand any further than the vestibule, and even mostly underground it’s warm enough to feel comfortable less than half dressed. Mando is still hovering awkwardly behind him, armour crusted with sand. At least he hadn’t worn his cape.

Cobb leaves him where he is, and settles on the bed, back to the doorway. You can lead a bantha to shade, but you can’t make it sleep. And, Cobb will at least admit to this to himself, he’s scared of pushing Mando too far. 

Mando’s as good as promised he’s going to stick around, and Cobb would love to believe him. He really would. But he knows better. Mando’s going to leave. Maybe not soon, maybe not for a few years even, but eventually. Everyone leaves on Tatooine, whether they want to or not. Mando’s already practised at it. He’d rather not give him more reason to. Cobb’s big enough to acknowledge that he’s a cocky son of a gundark most of the time, but he isn’t delusional enough to think whatever is growing between them is sprouting fast enough to keep Mando tethered to Mos Pelgo. Not when Grogu’s gonna have a gravity well of his own soon enough, one leading far away from Tatooine. 

But Mando is here for now. Cobb can eke out some happiness from whatever time they have. It might be hard, but Cobb is a miner, he's used to hard work and hard graft with little reward, progress etched painstakingly into the earth until suddenly a treasure glints beneath your hands. 

(He can't help but think about the glint of the sun off of Mando's armour.) 

The last few weeks have been…good. Good enough that this situation seems perfect to see if it’s time to act on anything that’s between them. He can hear the rustle of Mando removing his armour and outer layers behind him, and there’s the promise of being alone and uninterrupted for at least the next few hours. He’s had half-remembered dreams that start a similar way. 

But that’s all they were. Dreams. 

He knows Mando’s attracted to him at least. Cobb’s got pretty good at reading him, not that he’d found it all that difficult in the first place. For all that he’s all suited up, Mando can be an unlocked holoprojector at times. What he doesn’t know is if Mando’s ready to admit it, let alone anything else. Or maybe it’s the other way round. For all that he’s thought about it, Cobb’s not quite sure what Mando thinks about sex, not when being without his armour is such a big deal to him. Cobb wants to find out, and not just – well not _only_ – out of self-interest. He knows nothing and yet everything about Mando, and the discrepancy is killing him a little, especially when Mando has seen so much of him, so much he hasn’t shared with another in years. Or ever. 

He hears Mando stepping into the room properly behind him, and then nothing, and he wonders if the room feels as tight to Mando as it does to him. Now that Cobb’s thought about _doing something_ , he can’t stop thinking about it. He just needs to cowboy up, stop thinking, and start doing. 

“Mando…”

He gets a questioning grunt that tells him Mando hasn’t moved.

“Can I –” Frustrated, he cuts himself off. He searches for the right words, and for once is left lacking. He settles for, “My eyes are closed,” and scrambles to his feet, arm out in front of him. “Tell me to stop, if you don’t want this.”

Even with his eyes closed, in a place this small there’s not really anywhere else to go but to Mando. Two stumbling steps and his outstretched hands brush against skin. He freezes. There is a long, tense silence, and it reminds Cobb, absurdly, of the first time they met, hands hovering over blasters in the cantina. He doesn’t quite want another krayt dragon to appear and break the standoff, but as the seconds spool out he starts hoping _something_ will happen. 

Cobb’s prayers are answered. It’s a tremor, again, that shakes the holding pattern, Mando flinching against his touch, and the wind and the sand might be howling against the roof, but that little movement feels bigger than any dragon quake. The shuffle of Mando’s boots against the ground and warm skin pressing more firmly into his hand are enough to drown out the storm entirely.  
Cobb slides his fingers down and across, trying to triangulate exactly where Mando is, and then uses the softened ridge of an oblique to draw himself in closer, settling behind Mando with both hands resting tentatively on his hips, just below the waistline of his trousers. It feels like presumption to keep touching skin.

Mando is rigid under Cobb’s hands, and his breaths echo tinnily through his helmet.

"It's me." 

It's an inane statement. Who else would it be? But it's all Cobb can think to say, and he desperately hopes it's enough. That he's enough.

"My eyes are closed. I know the helmet stays on. I know you won't tell me your name. But please, can we at least have this?"

And he presses his face against the back of Mando's neck, nose nudging at the hair he feels escaping from the back of the helmet; it’s damp with sweat and Cobb wonders when the last time anyone helped him cut it was. He’s both surprised and not that he suddenly wants to be the one to do it. Despite the lingering resentment that Mando just _left_ him, he wants to help Mando wash his hair, and to shave, and he doesn’t even know his _name_ or what he looks like but he knows everything else about him apart from the touch of his lips, and even that doesn’t matter as much as the way the muscles under Cobb’s hands relax at his touch.

"You can open them. Your eyes."

Mando’s voice seems louder than normal, before Cobb does as he says. The hair just peeking out from under Mando’s helmet is brown, and there’s a mole just below the hairline, and suddenly Cobb’s universe has shrunk to those two facts. 

He kisses the mole, and again, and then draws back enough to look down the expanse of Mando’s back. Cobb wants to step away fully and take him all in without the bulky camouflage of his armour, but too many things have disappeared from his grasp to risk it. If he stops touching him, Mando might change his mind. 

His thoughts are interrupted by Mando putting a hand over his. It does interesting things to the muscles of his shoulders, but Cobb is more concerned with the touch of Mando’s bare hand against the back of his for the first time. His palm is damp from his gloves and it seems…momentous. Cobb thought he’d got used to sweat long ago, Tatooine boy through and through that he is. Every human, and a fair few other species, does it, especially under the glare of the twin suns. Mando is no exception. But wrapped up in his armour, humanity hidden away, it had been easy to forget that. It isn’t easy to forget now, as Mando’s strong fingers grip at Cobb’s, pulling his hand up and round until it rests on the padded hardness of his heaving stomach. 

Cobb’s hand clenches involuntarily, and a thrill goes through him at the give under his fingers. Tatooine is a hard place, and Mando suits it for the most part; the physical reminder of his occasional softness makes Cobb step closer, their bodies a sliver away from touching. 

It’s Mando who sways back enough to press them together. Cobb’s breath huffs out, in relief, in wanting, in sheer skin-hunger. His chest is plastered against Mando’s back, sweat tacky between the two of them, and this close the fast breaths crackling through the helmet seem very loud. Cobb pets at his belly soothingly. Or, at least, he means it soothingly, but Mando shoves back harder against him and lets out a low, pained noise, as if Cobb had gut-punched him instead of spreading his fingers to span as much skin at once as he can.

This is overwhelming enough for Cobb, and he’s guessing getting touched after being denied it for so long is doing even more of a number on Mando. He stills, letting his hand just rest where it is. After a moment, when Mando has sagged back against him, he dares to kiss at his neck again; it’s more nuzzling than kissing really, with the way he’s not even moving his face from Mando’s skin between each kiss. Mando seems to like it, anyway, and Cobb tentatively starts to move his hand again. There’s a small bloom of pain and a thud as Mando throws his head back, helmet colliding with his right shoulder. It leaves more of his throat exposed, and Cobb ignores the imminent crick in his neck in favour of straining to explore as much of it as possible, Mando’s hand coming up to cradle his head, fingers threading through his hair and kneading at the back of his neck.

Mando’s other hand covers Cobb’s own again, the one still carefully placed on his hip. Cobb is pressed up against Mando’s ass, hips moving lazily with Mando’s shifts, and his dick’s getting interested; he half-expects Mando to push his hand downwards, but instead he drags their left hands up to press against his chest. 

Cobb swears. Both hands pull Mando tighter back against him, sinking into soft flesh that Cobb still can’t quite believe is bare under his palms. Mando seems to agree, his left hand dropping to reach behind him and grab at Cobb’s thigh, grinding back as Cobb rubs at his nipple. Cobb lifts his head and just takes a second to _look_ at Mando’s neck, at the expanse of skin and tendons and the bob of his throat. Normally, it’s covered up by his undersuit, and Cobb’s gonna blame that for the way he can’t stop looking now that he’s managed to tear his mouth away. His chest is equally, unusually bare, but isn’t having the same effect; maybe it’s the proximity to Mando’s face, the way Cobb can follow the line of his neck up to his thrown back head and look at the underside of his chin. He wants to touch it.

There is nothing stopping him. 

Sliding his hand from Mando’s chest to hook his middle finger in the notch between his collarbones, he pushes hard enough to feel each breath, contracting his other hand against Mando’s belly with each exhale. He’s just grinding against Mando’s ass now, and it’s so easy to slide his hand up higher, to stroke at Mando’s throat, the heel of his palm anchored on his collarbones. His fingertips are brushing the stubbled under-side of Mando’s chin, and he feels it under his whole hand when Mando moans. 

They’re both sweating in the morning heat. It slicks the way for his right hand to move down Mando’s stomach and cup him through his trousers. He was expecting Mando’s thrust against his hand, expecting some space to grow between them, but Mando’s tight grip on his thigh drags him forward and they fuck against his hand together, and it’s so hot Cobb’s biting down on Mando’s neck between his own thumb and fingers to stifle a yell. He’s not sure why exactly. They’re the only ones around and the storm is plenty loud enough outside, but something about this feels private. 

Private enough that even though Mando’s not looking at him, for a brief moment Cobb longs for his own helmet in a way he never did when he actually wore the armour. He buries his face against Mando’s neck, but it still feels too exposed, too close to Mando’s visor and the unknown face beneath it. Mando’s hand is still gripping at his head, hot and solid in a way Cobb could easily melt into if it weren’t for the prickle of vulnerability and the rest of Mando’s body tight against him, and it leaves the whole of his right side open: Cobb wants to hide, but he wants to explore it more. 

He ducks down and around, left hand sliding down to Mando’s flank to brace against any instinctive movement away from him, pressing a brief kiss against his breast before pressing his face into Mando’s armpit. Mando makes a funny, choked off noise, as if remembering being ticklish but not feeling it any longer, as Cobb licks at the hair there; they both used the sonics before they set off, but that was hours ago, and if Cobb had been distracted by the sweat from Mando’s palms then the salt under his tongue is an even greater reminder that this is real. Water is precious on Tatooine. That’s a lesson life has beaten into him time and time again, but as Cobb lets his saliva evaporate against Mando’s skin, moving on to bite at his nipple, he lets himself be more than a son of the suns for a few moments. 

His hand is still pressed against Mando’s dick, but he wants to get his hand round it properly, to feel skin on skin and Mando’s pulse against his palm. Mando’s quicker than him though – _getting slow, old man_ – and pulls him round until they’re pressed chest to chest, legs and hips slotting together. Like Mando earlier, Cobb can’t stop himself bucking into the pressure, dick riding the line of Mando’s hip as they move together. It’s just grinding now. Both of their breaths are coming quickly, and Mando’s hands are everywhere, as if getting even with the exploring Cobb had been doing earlier.  
Cobb’s sure as not complaining, not when he feels so greedy for it. There’s a bead of sweat running down Mando’s collarbone and he chases it with his tongue, following the path it had taken as far as the helmet allows him. It had come from under it, and he thinks about it sliding down Mando’s face from his hair; he might not be able to see Mando’s face, but he can have this at least, this part of him, can stretch his tongue beneath the helmet to rasp at the stubble along Mando’s jaw. 

And it’s good, so good. Better than Cobb has imagined. He presses his forehead against the helmet, where Mando’s temple would be, and he doesn’t mean to stop moving until he finds himself still, watching the fogged bloom of his breath against the shined beskar. They’re just hugging now, and even with Cobb’s undershorts and Mando’s trousers Cobb can’t remember the last time he touched so much of someone’s bare skin. Can’t remember the last time he was held like this. He shivers despite the heat, and Mando shushes him, stroking at his back slightly too hard, as if patting a massif.

“What are we doing?” Cobb doesn’t mean to break the moment, either, but from the first time he opened his mouth as a freeman and wasn’t punished for it, he hasn’t been able to shut it, even when talking’s just gonna hurt him anyway. 

“Was hoping you’d tell me.” It’s as soft as the helmet lets Mando be. 

Cobb can’t do that. He already feels like he’s been flayed by a sandstorm like the one still raging outside. Maybe Mando made the first move by coming back, but he also upset the board when he left in the first place, and Cobb was the one to reach out earlier. He knows what he wants this to be, but he learned a very long time ago that wishes have a heavy price. 

Mando is watching him. “Ok.” He shifts to knock their foreheads together, leaning into Cobb, and Cobb knows he understands. The helmet is his limit, and this is Cobb’s. 

They just stand there, chests and bellies pushing against each other as they breathe, until Mando inhales deeply enough to break their rhythm. He reaches for Cobb’s right hand and presses it firmly against his own chest again, orientated to its left.

"It’s yours." 

Cobb nearly doesn’t catch what Mando says, with how quiet it is, and then it takes him a second to understand what Mando means. He feels the reassuring thump of a heartbeat under his hand, and it dawns on him. 

“Darlin’…” The cracks in his own voice are cavernous. 

Maybe their foundations are stronger than Cobb’s been accounting for. On Mando’s side at least. Cobb knows full well what he’s working with when it comes to himself, his new policy of self-truth a mirror he can’t escape, like the reflection staring back at him from Mando’s vizor.

When he swallows, his mouth is drier than the Great Dune Sea. “Seems we swapped them a while ago.”

It’s too much vulnerability. Cobb still feels hollowed out with anger and desperate relief and other emotions too tangled up to separate out, from Mando leaving and then coming back, and the hole’s only just getting filled back in. He pushes at Mando’s chest, walking him backwards until they hit the sturdy stone table. It’s probably older than Mos Pelgo and worn smooth by generations of hands and bowls. 

He turns Mando round, hand reassuring on the small of his back, and scrapes his mouth across one shoulder blade and then the other, zigzagging downwards until he can take some of the skin just above Mando’s waistband between his teeth. His forehead rests against Mando’s back, and he turns his head enough to rub his scarred temple against the sweaty skin; it seems pretty clear by now that they both want this to happen again, but just in case Cobb wants to get in as many sensations as he can. On Tatooine there’s no such thing as planning for too many eventualities. 

Right now, looking down at Mando, there’s only one eventuality he wants. He opens his mouth, and lets the words fall out.

“I want to eat you out.”

Mando moan is strangled by his helmet’s speakers, helmeted head dropping down and legs widening. One arm braces him against the stone, the other contorting behind himself to paw at whatever parts of Cobb’s head and shoulders he can reach.

“Please, darlin’?” It’s a question, even if Mando’s posture and the hand reaching around behind himself towards Cobb are answer enough. Cobb’s spent enough of his life not being able to say no that he’ll never deny someone else a chance to say it, even he feels half-mad with every passing second spent without his tongue against, inside, Mando.

“Yeah. Come on,” and it would be brusque if Cobb didn’t know Mando. 

He plasters himself along Mando’s back, reaching round to undo his trousers and drawing back to pull them down. They bunch around Mando’s ankles with his underwear, and Cobb follows them to the ground. The sight of Mando’s bare feet is startingly intimate, especially considering he’s about to bury his face in his ass. He reaches out to touch the knobbly jut of Mando’s ankles, sliding his hands up through the hair on his calves, following the muscles up along his thighs to pull himself into position with both hands spreading Mando’s ass cheeks wide. 

Cobb doesn’t bother wasting any more time. 

He licks at firmly at Mando’s hole, jaw spread wide to get closer. His beard is scraping gently at Mando’s cheeks, his taint, and he moves his tongue out enough to lick soothingly over the faint pink trails, before moving back in. Mando’s hairy here, and he likes it. It’s enough that Cobb’ll probably end up with some stuck in his teeth, but that’s a problem for a time when Mando’s not making the _noises_ he is, head hung low and his panting distorted through the modulator. 

Then Mando’s moving, and Cobb’s not sure what he’s trying to do; the hand in his hair pulls him back, and for a moment Cobb’s worried. But then Mando lifts his leg, foot now shimmied free of his clothes, and props his knee up against the table. He’s much more open like this, and as Cobb works his tongue back in he’s half tempted to start jacking off at the sight alone. He would, if he didn’t want to concentrate solely on making Mando lose his fucking mind. 

He slides one hand around to play with Mando’s balls and is rewarded by Mando swearing. There’s a hint of static under Mando's softly uttered fuck, as if he'd whined and the speakers hadn't picked it up properly, and the thought only goads Cobb on. He loses track of the next few minutes, until Mando’s voice shakes him out of the half-trance he’d fallen into. 

“Stop,” he hears, and he might be concerned if Mando wasn’t turning round on wobbly knees, reaching for him. His voice is slurred as he says “Closer,” and he drags Cobb in, and Cobb’s dick hasn’t been touched for ages but he’s so fucking hard. One of Mando’ hands is clumsily pulling at the front of Cobb’s underwear, taking him out and stroking him, and Cobb rocks forward with the movement. 

They’re all tangled together again, like before, only its even better now that their dicks can slide alongside each other. It’s a little dry, but before Cobb can bring himself to do anything about it Mando takes his hand away, holding it up to Cobb’s face.

“Spit.” His voice is even more gravely than usual, and Cobb feels a perverse sense of pride. He spits in Mando’s hand, and Mando takes hold of both of them. It’s so fucking hot that Cobb can’t even look at it, and his head falls back with a groan.

Cobb’s not surprised that Mando comes first. If he’s honest, he’s surprised he’s lasted this long, with how he’d reacted to a touch to his stomach. He’s glad for it though, that despite how foggy his own brain’s getting, he’s still lucid enough to watch, to see the clench of Mando’s dense core as he comes over both of their stomachs, the prominence of the tendons in his neck. To hear his punched-out moan and see the way his shoulders sag with relaxation after he’s finished fucking his own hand through the aftershocks. 

His hand stays slack for a long few moments afterwards, and Cobb brings his hand up to cup the nape of his neck, a grounding, soothing weight. As Mando tightens his grip around just Cobb, the hand is more an anchor for himself. He uses it to pull himself forwards again, to brace his forehead against the helmet and watch his breath fog it up as he pants, his spine curved and belly sucked concave to give Mando more room. 

Mando doesn’t speed up, just keeps a steady pace, twisting his wrist in just the right way. His other hand roams around Cobb’s ass, his balls, a tease but one deliberate enough that Cobb’s orgasm still feels inexorable. A few more measured strokes, the t-shaped vizor staring impassively at him – a contrast to the way he’d writhed against Cobb’s face just a few minutes earlier – and Cobb comes, grabbing at Mando’s bicep with his free hand.

They stand there, propped up against the table. The storm is still roaring outside. Less than an hour has passed, and nothing’s really changed, except from the fact that Cobb’s gonna have to start thinking of things in the present, and not as hypotheticals.


End file.
